theorywatch

In all my advice-giving on comps, it never occurred to me to mention that each question should be read as a whole: don’t just extract the last sentence from the context of the entire question and answer that as if it were a stand-alone question. (Especially if you answer it without any reference to the context of the coursework, the program or the profession itself: that’s a pretty sure-fire way to find yourself doing an oral defense, I’m afraid!)

Although it would be an interesting exercise to analyze previous questions in terms of keywords and their varying contexts, I’m quite sure that I won’t do that. But here’s a Wordle from the words in previous questions while you’re waiting to hear about how you did on these questions!